BIG RAPIDS, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – “Teaching tolerance with objects of intolerance.” These are the words that the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery uses to describe their collection of racist artifacts and imagery. The museum, which is housed on the campus of Ferris State University in Big Rapids, is one of the nation’s largest publicly accessible collection of artifacts of intolerance, and thanks to the 2024 Michigan budget, they just received $5 million. Overall, the university will receive $59.6 million in direct appropriations from the budget, putting the museum grant at 8% of the school’s appropriation for the upcoming school year.

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While the rest of the state and the country is tearing down statues and re-naming sports teams and schools to get rid of any connection to the country’s racist past, this Ferris State University museum has gone in the opposite direction and has a tagline of “witness, understand, heal,” asking Michiganders to go through their museum that contextualizes the “dreadful impact of Jim Crow laws and customs.”

This is the second time in two years that the state of Michigan has given the museum money, having given them $1 million in the last budget. The $5 million grant appeared as an earmark so there is no information about which legislators directed the millions of dollars of funding to the college – or why – and no state legislator has put out a press release or taken credit for the funding.

Inside of the museum are approximately 20,000 objects that are related to the Jim Crow era which occurred in the late 19th an 20th centuries during a time of enforced racial segregation. It was forced state-sponsored governmental segregation unlike the voluntary segregation that we see on campuses now including Ferris States’ multicultural student graduation recognition which as the university says is “an opportunity for graduating International, Black, Latino, Asian and Native American students to be congratulated on earning a Bachelors Masters or Doctorate Degree from Ferris State University.”

On the museum’s website, Rosemarie Marin of Midland asks, “How do the museum staff feel about working with a collection of hateful and hurtful objects?”

Cyndi Tiedt, Collections Manager for the Museum, says, “I do not like the objects; however, I see them as valuable documents of our history as Americans and worthy of preservation. As a steward of material culture, I have a duty to make sure they are protected in our facility.  I strive to treat a saltshaker with the same professional courtesy as I do a painting or sculpture.”

The objects at the museum include things like “Mammy” and ”Aunt Jemima” memorabilia as well as racist dolls, cartoons, advertising, music, games, toys and more.

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The $5 million grant will be added to the university’s goal of $22 million needed to expand the museum and further their use of “objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice.” According to the university, the future Jim Crow Museum will host lectures, conferences and workshops for Ferris students, scholars from universities across the United States, law enforcement personnel, politicians, civil leaders, religious organizations and civil rights advocates. Additionally, an expanded museum will feature a 7,500-square-foot permanent exhibit to highlight the museum’s most compelling pieces and have a greater capacity to display more of the growing collection.

David Pilgrim, who is Ferris’ vice president for diversity, inclusion and strategic initiatives and the museum’s founder and curator said of the expansion, “The financial investment by the Board of Trustees sends a powerful message. Once built, the new Jim Crow Museum will be a centerpiece of the University’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and serves our students, the state, and the nation as a teaching and learning resource.”

According to the museum’s website, the museum came about from Pilgriam’s personal collection, having bought his first piece of racist memorabilia in the 1970’s in Alabama when he was a child. He had bought it and smashed it to the ground. Later, as an undergrad student in Texas, he discovered his passion for collecting similar pieces, fueled by anger, but then he put his rage and collection to a better use. He said, “I gave public addresses (early 1990s), mainly to high school students. I discovered that many young people, blacks and whites, were not only ignorant about historical expressions of racism, but they believed that I was exaggerating when I described the awfulness of Jim Crow. Their ignorance disappointed me. I showed them segregation signs, Ku Klux Klan robes, and everyday objects that portrayed Blacks with ragged clothes, unkempt hair, bulging eyes and clown-like lips – running toward fried chicken and watermelons and running away from alligators. … I was learning to use the objects as teaching tools while simultaneously dealing with my anger.”